Have you ever thought about the power of storytelling? Allow us to demonstrate it…
It’s a rainy day at preschool Little Buggers. Kinder day-care teacher Roger Kesh III is left with only 4 children after the rest of his bunch were called in sick. Drizzly, dark, wet, and cold; no time for a child to play outside. That means it’s story time!
Betsy, Dorothy, Wilfred and Henk all wait in excitement as teacher Roger opens his book of fairy-tales. The adventure begins behind the children’s eyes the moment Roger starts the story. He tells about an adventure of a tough princess that comes to rescue a beautiful prince. With the use of her legendary sword she is to defeat the overseeing guard Dragon from which the prince cannot escape.
‘Your days are numbered, dragon!’ declared the princess.
‘Don’t be absurd, you low life human. You overestimate your chances and you shall perish,’ replied the dragon in a cool, baritone voice.
‘We’ll see if you still talk big after I stick this sword in your rear end and turn you into shis kebab flambé!’ yelled the princess back, full of fury.
The story is over. The princess returned victoriously and carried her prince in her arms. The children fired numerous questions at Roger during the story:
‘Was the princess pretty?’ Betty asked. ‘Yes, but she was also quite hefty in the legs.’
‘How big was her sword?’ Wilfred asked. ‘Bigger than yours.’
‘And the prince lying in bed, did he get to eat pizza and watch Dragon Ball Z all day?’ Henk asked. ‘Yes.’ ‘Jaaaaaay’ the boys yelled.
‘How do a dragon and a donkey get children?’ Dorothy asked. ‘It’s 2022, that’s why. Whatever.’
The storm has cleared around the day-care and the sun is shining through. When the children start to play outside, their minds are still in the story. Henk gets to play the princess and Dorothy gets to play the prince, because whatever. It’s 2022, that’s why. The big tree in the middle is suddenly a dragon.
‘Your days are numbered, Dragon!’ yell Betsy and Henk, waving a stick around as a sword.
‘Pizza and DBZ!
Pizza and DBZ!’ the others chant.
The power of storytelling; we identify ourselves with characters
Remember what it was like to be a child and to let your mind drift off in all those pleasant stories? But did that feeling ever waver, ever change?
Football (soccer for Americans) also tells a story; every match, every season, every cup is a story. Us men are still boys and women are still girls. We love identifying with our heroes. We get ourselves a sleeve tattoo like our favourite football players or dress ourselves fully in Red Bull garment to be like Max Verstappen. From boyhood to adulthood to seniorship we still need make-believe to apply colour to our grey reality.
As you could read in the preschool analogy above, the children gobbled the story up and when they started playing, they pretended to be the heroes of the story. They repeat what the hero says; they soak everything up. They remember important elements of the story. Imagine you are one of these children.
Adults learn in the same way as they did as children. People strongly identify themselves with characters of a story, more so than with warnings, sales pitches or numbers. It’s no surprise that storytelling is a popular tool among copywriters, marketeers and advertisers. Customers understand the message more clearly and become more prone to take action.
Increase your profits with the correct narration
Yep. Basically. In more ways than you expect:
- Customers take action
- You can place stories on Social Media
- You can apply SEO in your story telling
1 Customers take action
First, customers get fully involved when they can identify themselves with a relevant story. Because, when they connect with your brand, you will build customer trust and loyalty. They will remember you and the characters they see themselves in.
You can use an actual case in which you helped a customer solve a problem. For example, if you sell vegetarian baskets to companies you can share experiences of your customers;
- Emma from Paper Products Inc. always found it difficult to provide meals for all her co-workers
- She found you guys
- Next, all vegetarian co-workers are happy with their meals
- Moreover Abdul, a Muslim co-worker, is now able to eat the workplace provided meals because they are halal (without meat)
And, a Emma from a different organisation can easily identify herself with this story, making her more prone to take action.
2 Storytelling has a place in social media
Secondly, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. All these platforms are well suited for storytelling marketing. People on these platforms are looking for experiences rather than products or advertisement.
Copywriter Neslihan from Manify Agency knows this all too well and shared her experience: ‘Creating storytelling content for social media is so rewarding. People experience advertisement without realising it. In fact, they endorse it by sharing these stories. Normally people want to get rid of advertisement as soon as they see it, but with storytelling, they embrace it and make it part of their identity’.
3 SEO in storytelling
Lastly, you can put so many keywords in a large storytelling text. Your organisation will be easier to find for potential customers, partners, etc.
Be creative. You can add words like profit, results, marketing, advertisement, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, performance, advertisement, marketing, results, storytelling, storytelling marketing, storytelling presentation.
Here, watch while I do it again:
Profit, results, marketing, advertisement, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, performance, advertisement, marketing, results, storytelling, storytelling marketing, storytelling presentation.
Easier to be found, means more people buying your product means more profit means they all lived wealthily ever after.
The end
